


Fragmented Light

by fatalism_and_villainy



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Children of Hurin - Freeform, M/M, Mild Internalized Ableism, Nargothrond, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Trauma, basically a portrayal of the potential for attraction, no fandom tag for CoH either, sensory issues, there's really no tag for this ship huh, while Gwindor's sex drive is kind of nonexistent at the present moment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:54:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24602680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fatalism_and_villainy/pseuds/fatalism_and_villainy
Summary: Gwindor struggles to process his return to Nargothrond, and his conflicting feelings towards his new companion.
Relationships: Túrin Turambar/Gwindor, background Gwindor/Finduilas
Comments: 3
Kudos: 15





	Fragmented Light

**Author's Note:**

> This effort was encouraged and helped along by alackofghosts on tumblr, for which I'm very grateful!
> 
> Ideally this would eventually result in Túrin/Gwindor/Finduilas (especially in a happier AU where their bonds have an opportunity to flourish beyond the unhappy circumstances within which they find themselves in canon.... /sigh) but that's beyond the scope of this particular fic.

How thoroughly captivity could blur the body’s memories, and render sensations once taken for granted as new and alien. Most striking to Gwindor was rediscovering silence; accustomed as he was to the din and clamour of the dungeons of Angband, and the harsh repudiations waiting around every corner, the silence of the open air seemed a physical quality in and of itself. The evenings in particular were thick with it. At first, he had clung to the sound of the birds passing overhead, or the leaves rustling in the trees, or the gurgling of running water, just to quell the disquieting heaviness of the silence.

But the silence of the outside world was nothing in comparison to Túrin’s silence, numb and impenetrable and almost a living thing in and of itself, straining against the bounds of his body. Mutely he trudged after Gwindor, accepted the lembas offered him with a numb compliance, and rose each morning without protest, but in the terrible silence persisted, and its presence was a heavy burden between them. 

It was only when Túrin first wept that Gwindor dared to touch him. At Ivrin, the terrible, unnatural silence dissolved, leaving only Túrin kneeling on the ground, with his head bent down and his body trembling. Gwindor approached him carefully, feeling somewhat like an intruder in the private show of grief. But he was moved by the sudden outpouring of feeling from his companion, and was urged to pay homage to the friendship that he had only witnessed from each individual side. Perhaps, more selfishly, he was also inclined to indulge in pity that was not self-pity. He knelt down beside Túrin, as if keeping vigil, and after a time lightly placed his hand on Túrin’s arm. Slowly, Túrin lifted his head. Gwindor had not looked properly at his face since that terrible moment in the lightening, fear always hastening his eyes away. Túrin’s once crazed and menacing face was now streaked with tears, and glistened in the waning light as surely as the surface of the pools. 

***

“We should make a fire,” said Túrin, later. They had opted to stay the night in under a thin cover of trees near the pools.

Gwindor lifted his head to look at him. “I have been reluctant to light one thus far, for fear of attracting Orcs.”

“But they have passed on, and pose less of a threat to us now. We are more likely to draw the attention of your own people within these borders, are we not? Besides-” Túrin drew closer – “we are on the brink of winter, and there is a chill in the air. I know it’s affecting you as well.”

It was true – Gwindor had been feeling as if his skin were somehow thinner, more pinched, and each gust of wind had sent tremors through him as easily as through the brittle autumn leaves. The reminder of his weakness, the lessening of his body, chafed at him, but he knew he could not argue. 

Túrin set about building and lighting the fire himself, with no request or apparent need of aid – but why should he have such a need, having spent so many years in the wilderness? Gwindor watched him as he bent over the fire, slowly feeding the flames with breath after breath. There was no sign of the wildness bespeaking life as an outlaw, or of the terrible recklessness that had seized him in the moment of their meeting; Túrin was patient and meticulous with the fire, and a new silence had come over him. It was not the oppressive, consuming silence that he had carried with him in his madness, but a natural expression from a thoughtful and contemplative mind. 

When the flames were blazing steadily, Túrin sat up, satisfied with his labours, and gazed into the fire in brooding silence. He seemed to Gwindor to be self-enclosed, wrapped up in a cloak of unfathomable thoughts. Then, after a long while, Túrin began to sing softly. It was a lament for his lost friend, commemorating his brave deeds and his generous heart, ever reverberating with sorrow at the eternity of their parting. The structure of a warrior’s lament was familiar to Gwindor, achingly so, and the relief from the silence of the evening was not quite enough to quell his bitter knowledge that such a song would never be sung for him. 

***

Sleep held little temptation for Gwindor that night, and indeed had not for a long time. Initially, exhaustion had overwhelmed all other urges, but since Beleg’s rescue of him, he had steadfastly resisted it. His gratitude towards his rescuer could not lessen memory of the sickening fear he had felt, just for a split second, upon Beleg shaking him awake, and the sense that he had been seized again for new torments. So Gwindor promised to keep watch, and Túrin wrapped himself in his cloak and lay down on the other side of the fire. Gwindor leaned back against a tree. There was no sound except the spitting of the embers of the fire and the whispering of the leaves, and Gwindor slipped into the tense comfort of vigilance, still not quite believing in the openness of his surroundings, of the freshness of the crisp air.

There was a shuffling sound across from him, and Gwindor looked to see Túrin shifting restlessly on the ground. After a few moments, he lifted his head and spoke Gwindor’s name. When Gwindor simply looked at him in response, Túrin rose from his spot on the ground and came to sink down at Gwindor’s side. 

“Thank you.” Túrin’s eyes were focused intently on Gwindor’s face, and his proud features had been overtaken by a strange hesitancy. After a pause, he added, “But why did you not drink as well?”

Gwindor blinked. “What?”

“At the pools,” Túrin pressed on. The flickering light of the fire and the steady light of the moon seemed to be competing in their efforts to trace the angles of his face, and shadows twitched across his mouth as he spoke. “Surely you have been deeply hurt, in spirit as well as body. Why should you not also be healed?” 

Túrin’s speech was still new and startling, and there was an abrupt quality to it, even when uttered in soft-spoken tones. The sudden question called back for Gwindor the memory of the sun glimmering on the water – not the sun of that afternoon, weak and waning in light of the coming winter (perhaps the sun itself had been diminished, in such a short amount of time? He had heard that the Trees in Valinor had been far less changeable), but the butter-soft glow of the summer that suffused the verdant countryside. And in the centre of it all, Finduilas, with her golden hair tumbling over her shoulders as she tossed back her head in laughter, looking as if she had been made to dwell within light and liveliness. 

The memory had been stirring within Gwindor ever since they arrived at Ivrin. Beauty untarnished, and in fact made sharper by the thin, steady fall of the winter sunlight and preserved by the chilly, clean-scented air. The rich beauty of the pools had seemed to be lying in wait to awaken new joy. But they had not been lying in wait for him. 

Gwindor exhaled slowly, the knot of pain he had been holding back slowly uncoiling in his heart. He turned to meet Túrin’s probing gaze. His nearness was almost overwhelming. 

“There is healing, and then there is healing,” Gwindor said finally. “And if I am to be healed, then I doubt that it can be done by the same means as you.”

“Then I will find another means,” Túrin said firmly. “And if you discover one, then I would have you tell me of it.” And with a tentativeness that did not match the conviction in his tone, he reached out and gently pressed Gwindor’s hand. 

***

Nargothrond was the crown jewel of the House of Finarfin, the manifestation of its spendour and King Felagund’s most cherished dreams. Or so Gwindor had been taught ever since his childhood. The richly polished doors, the glistening gemstones that illuminated the underground tunnels, and the elegantly twisting stairwells all stood as a testament to the friendship and artistic exchange that Felagund had so valued, and of the perseverance of the Noldorin beauty in the midst of war. 

It was not designed for escaped thralls. 

That was, perhaps, the reason why the scouts that had captured them had refused to acknowledge him, though they claimed later that he had changed beyond identification. Gwindor was certain that he had seen a flicker of recognition when he had named himself, if just for a split second, but then then it had died in their eyes favour of the stern, enforced distance becoming of a soldier – and how could Gwindor fault them, when he had had such a keen dedication to doing what was becoming?

Túrin had been indignant at their treatment, and had hotly protested the tendency of the Elves of Nargothrond to handle their own allies in such a fashion. But Gwindor had quieted him, and assured him that their luck would be borne out once they reached Nargothrond.

They were seen to by the healers once they arrived, though still heavily guarded, and it was then that Finduilas was brought to them at Gwindor’s behest. She wore a high collar brocade dress and elaborate headpiece, and her hands were clasped in front of her in a gesture that Gwindor recognized as her usual show of stately concern. The sight of her, more familiar than anything after so long apart, had shocked him, and when their eyes met, he saw the same startled recognition as the scouts. She rushed to him, and then stopped, hesitating, as if she had forgotten how to touch him, and Gwindor felt suddenly that he had done her some great wrong in depending upon her to vouch for him.

King Felagund, it was said, had loved a golden-haired lady of the Vanyar, and he had left her on the shores of the land of bliss, to dwell in anticipation of his return as he went forth to his doom. Gwindor had thought of him the morning he rode off to battle, when he clasped Finduilas to him for the last time. But King Felagund had died a heroic death, and renown had made his name as gilded as his halls. Gwindor thought bitterly that he would have done better by Finduilas to die; she would know well how to play the bereaved widow. But she seemed at a loss as to how to approach him now, and plied him with a maddening gentleness and concern that grated him endlessly.

(He could not help noting, also, the way her eyes had lingered on Túrin, taking in the beauty of his features and the strength of his body. He felt loath to blame her, for would he not, in a simpler time, be equally as compelled?)

***

Túrin came to his rooms one evening. The spring had come and the sun lingered long into the evening, its haze stretching obliquely past the north window. Túrin was dressed smartly in yellows and greens, with his hair combed back and the smell of lavender clinging to him. He had clearly bathed earlier. 

“Your manservant was very curious about me,” Túrin reported, sweeping through the doorway and laying his cloak over the side table. “I was subjected to several minutes of questioning.”

Gwindor lifted his head from his knees. He was sitting sideways on the window seat with his feet propped up in front of him (a posture hardly becoming at court, which was perhaps partly why Gwindor had been over-indulging in solitude of late). His chambers had been untouched upon his return. As with Finduilas, seeing them again had been an eerie reunion with an unreachable past. He could not bring himself to do much in the way of re-decorating, and watching Túrin move about the room with a familiar confidence gave relief where there ought to have been annoyance.

“We are welcoming to Men here, for King Felagund loved them.”

“But what have you been doing?” Túrin came to sit on the other side of the window seat, his tone almost coaxing. “You were missed this evening.”

“Watching the sun go down.” Gwindor shifted slightly. “May I not dedicate time to the sight that has been denied me these many years?”

“You may.” Túrin’s steady gaze had gone soft with pity. “But I thought the Eldar disliked the sun and were lovers of the stars.”

“It is often thus with those who came out of the Undying Lands,” Gwindor replied. “But those of us who are younger feel more of an allegiance to the light we were born under.” Again the thought of Finduilas, and the stolen hours they had spent wandering in the sunlight. At the pang he felt, Gwindor could not hold back from adding, “And it is the nature of the Eldar to love beauty, and to be easily grieved at its transience.”

There was silence for a moment. 

“I have come from the King’s chambers,” Túrin said finally. “He has been inviting me to drink and converse with his lords.”

Gwindor nodded, unsurprised. Orodreth had been dedicated to continuing Finrod’s habits and traditions, and Finrod’s evening gatherings had been locally famed. 

“Your name came up,” Túrin continued. “The King remarked upon your absence, inquired after your recovery.” 

Gwindor let out a harsh laugh, unable to stop himself. “I am not wanted there.”

“You have been invited!”

“The King does me a courtesy and nothing more. He feels bound by my position, but would be unable to stand my presence. And none of the others will look at me properly. Their eyes dart towards me surreptitiously during councils, or when we pass each other in the halls, but they look hastily away. Don’t pretend you haven’t noticed it.”

Túrin looked at a loss for words for a moment, and it occurred to Gwindor that perhaps he hadn’t noticed. 

“In truth, I am unskilled in the subtleties of reading glances,” Túrin finally confessed. “I was a fosterling in Doriath, and my training was mainly in matters of war. I can speak for myself easily in councils, but I found myself at something of a loss in such close quarters, and in less formal conversation.” Túrin hands were clasped togethers, his thumb working its way between the long, slender fingers of his other hand. It was a nervous habit Gwindor had noticed before. “Will you help me?”

Gwindor made another disbelieving sound, a huff of air escaping his mouth. “You would have me guide you in courtly flattery and insinuation? You will find many others better equipped in such matters who would gladly take you under their wing.” 

“Yes, but-” Túrin hesitated, pressing his lips together in thought. “The others all admire me, and hasten to gain my friendship. But none of them speaks to me straightly, as you do. I would be guided by one whose honestly I can trust.”

There was something plaintive and lost in his fair features, and Gwindor found, as before, that he could not refuse him. 

“I will help you,” Gwindor said finally, and Túrin smiled, a rare sight, the angles of his face flattered by the light of the setting sun (and perhaps it was fitting, that the sun should bring forth such beauty in the children of Men). Despite his trepidation at further enabling his own obsolescence, Gwindor felt, for the moment, gratified. 

***

The next night, Gwindor attempted to sleep. Given that he had of late been finding heavy covers oppressive, he was wrapped only in a thin sheet, and the cool night air leeched through the stonework to dampen the effect of the fire in the hearth. Nonetheless, an uncomfortable sheen of sweat was forming on his body, as it often did when rest eluded him. An uncertain haze stole over his mind and he dozed off into a mire of exhaustion and faint paranoia, while still stubbornly aware of the precise placement of his limbs on the mattress. 

He jerked fully awake at the snick of the door to the outer room opening. Panic washed over him for a moment, and he lay still and called out, “Who’s there?”

There was a pause, and then Túrin’s figure appeared in the doorway to Gwindor’s bedroom, silhouetted by the muted glow of the fire. 

Gwindor pressed the heel of his hand to his temple. His head was beginning to ache. 

“How did you get in?”

“Your guards trust me. I said I had left something in your sitting room.”

“You forgot nothing.”

“I know.” Túrin had advanced, and now sat down almost gingerly on the foot of the bed. “I simply… I couldn’t sleep.”

He paused, as if waiting for a response, and then added, “Well, that’s not true. Sleep comes too easily, and brings troubling dreams with it, and I find that unless I leave my bed and take long walks, there is no escape from them. I have circled the entirety of the outer battlements in past nights, and the guards give me strange looks.” His face suddenly fell in concern. “Did I wake you? You are usually awake at this hour.”

“After a fashion,” Gwindor murmured, distractedly combing his hair from his face. “But it is no matter. It was not a restful sleep.”

Túrin’s eyes were still fixed on him, a frown cresting his forehead. It was far too similar to the way Finduilas looked at him now – almost an appraisement.

Gwindor sighed and pushed back the sheet, sitting fully up with his legs crossed. After a moment, Túrin shifted so that he was kneeling across from Gwindor, his legs tucked under him in an almost catlike manner. There was something absurdly juvenile about their arrangement, and yet intimate – and they had taken to speaking in near-whispers with not the hushed excitement of children staying up late, but with the gravity of lovers.

“I would have heard you come in at any rate. I have always been acutely in tune with the sounds of my surroundings.”

Túrin’s slate-gray eyes were inscrutable, and still relentless in their gazing, but his tone was compassionate. “I had forgotten you were also a soldier.”

“For a short while.” The memory, again, of the fresh cold morning before the Nirnaeth, Finduilas’ hands sliding slowly from his as he turned to go. “Although for a longer time than you.”

Gwindor could not say whether he had intended the last words as an indictment or not. They had simply followed as a natural consequence of his thought process, just as Nargothrond seemed to have adopted the Mormegil as the raven-dark successor to Felagund, the one who would not ride to his ruin, but return to sow the seeds of glory again and again. _Why do we – why did he – put so much faith in the mortals to persevere?_ Túrin did not seem to catch the offense, at any rate, but merely nodded abstractedly.

“At any rate,” Gwindor continued, “my sensitivity to noise did not arise from combat. I have always been this way. I was given extensive musical training as a child, but turned out to be a better critic than a player.” 

He did not add that it was a quality that had been more of a bane to him ever since he had escaped Angband – that the very stone of the walls of Nargothrond seemed to constantly be subtly grinding against each other, and that the torrent of whispers at court seemed to follow him to the farthest reaches of the fortress. 

“I was given some education on the mandolin in Doriath,” said Túrin. “But I proved to be ill-suited to it.”

“But you made your song when we were on the road.”

“I believe it is in my blood. My father also made songs.” Túrin’s hands were clasped together once again, his thumb dancing between his fingers. “But they are not the stuff of courtly entertainment. I could never compose on command. My songs are those of a wanderer, and are borne from restlessness. I can only sing while on the road. And I rested better on the road as well. Didn’t you?”

Gwindor let their eyes meet. Even in the dim light of the fire, he noted how unusually pale Túrin looked.

“I did as well, at times,” he answered slowly. “But only after you were healed.”

Túrin was silent for a moment, but it was not the frightening silence of his former madness or the pensive silence that often came over him in unguarded moments. It was meandering and indecisive, just as he had been flitting between potential topics for the course of the conversation. His teeth worried into his lip. Then, as if resolute, he leaned over with all his characteristic gracefulness and kissed Gwindor on the mouth. 

The shock of the gesture completely numbed Gwindor for several seconds, and then the sensations rushed in: the brush of Túrin’s hair against his cheek, the surprising softness of his lips, and the almost clumsy force of the kiss. The latter made Gwindor wonder briefly if Túrin had ever done such a thing before; then that thought gave way to a sudden and unconstrainedly physical anger. 

Gwindor wrenched himself free, his breathing unnervingly uneven. “Have you taken leave of your senses?” he demanded.

A shadow of hurt flickered across Túrin’s face. Then he set his jaw, his features realigning themselves into an expression of stubborn pride.

“If this is how you intend to show pity - ”

“This is not pity,” said Túrin fiercely, lifting his chin and tossing his hair back from his face. “I had thought such things were common enough among friends here. But if you would scorn my intentions - ”

“Scorn? Do you think you are so irresistible?” The sudden malice in his words was unexpected, but gave Gwindor a bitter satisfaction, as if he were reshaping all the things he could not say to Finduilas.

Túrin was silent, his mouth tightening. “I will take my leave.”

“No, don’t.” Gwindor seized his arm, regret setting in like a dead weight in his stomach. “I… forgive me. You startled me.”

Túrin’s stormy grey eyes lingered on him for a moment, uncertain. “Don’t pity _me_ , if you don’t want me.”

“It isn’t that,” Gwindor said, hastily. His thoughts were scattered, and he felt strangely unmoored from his body. Amidst the still-unnerving absence of his hand, the unfamiliarity of his limbs, the sheer wrongness of how others looked at him, now, as if he were a stranger, the matter of wanting seemed entirely the wrong question. 

“It’s…” Gwindor trailed off helplessly, taking in Túrin’s face. His cheekbones seemed even more pronounced in the slanted half-light of the fire, and his eyes had a resolute glow, almost like to those who had come out of the Blessed Realm. 

He had no idea how lovely he was. Resentment settled in Gwindor’s chest, along with a stubborn tenderness.

“You are confused, perhaps,” Gwindor finally said. Túrin made to shake his head, but Gwindor reached out and put a hand on his cheek, holding him steady. He paused, and then moved to kiss the centre of Túrin’s brow, letting his lips linger for a moment.

Túrin let out a slow breath, as if letting the tension flow from his body. He shifted closer and laid his forehead on Gwindor’s shoulder, and Gwindor kept his hand in place. They stayed still for a moment in the strange embrace, and Gwindor closed his eyes for a moment – when was the last time he had had such close contact? 

“Will you let me sleep here at least?” Túrin asked, finally, and it occurred to Gwindor that perhaps the kiss had been a request, rather than an offer. 

“Yes,” he said simply, his hand instinctively moving through Túrin’s dark hair. 

They lay down side by side, and Túrin loosely draped his arm over Gwindor’s side. The fire had died down only a bit, but the air in the room seemed infinitely more bearable. Gwindor rhythmically moved his hand through Túrin’s hair, his touch light but deliberate. 

“Hurts take more time to heal than it often appears on the surface,” Túrin said softly. “But they need not master us.”

Gwindor might have argued, but exhaustion stopped his mouth. It only barely occurred to him to wonder why in the arms of one so doomed he should suddenly feel so safe.


End file.
